Dem
47
GOP
53
In 1941, Henry Luce, the influential publisher of Time magazine, proclaimed the "American Century," in which the post-World War II United States would lead the world, spread free enterprise, and create an abundant life around the globe. He saw enormous possibilities for the world under American leadership. He was basically right for 80 years. The system was based on four principles:
Now Donald Trump wants to dismantle the entire thing. He wants to gut federal agencies of their expertise, impose tariffs, de-commit from NATO, and cozy up to dictators abroad. He sees the "American Century" as an enemy to be defeated. His cabinet picks include many incompetent people who will achieve his goals by running their departments into the ground.
The "American Century" didn't happen by itself. The Marshall Plan in Europe and aid to Japan and Asia reduced the chances of those countries deciding that communism was the way of the future. This was in America's interest, so the money was well spent. Rebuilding war-torn countries also provided huge export markets for American manufacturers. Bretton Woods established the IMF and World Bank, whose loans often stipulated that the money had to be spent buying products and services from American companies. These institutions were definitely not created out of pure altruism. But the result was to create prosperous trading partners for America and peace in the world. Sometimes the U.S. made nice to autocrats in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, but on the whole, the system worked and certainly benefited America.
A key part of the success story was immigration, both skilled workers and unskilled workers. About 25% of the agricultural workforce is currently undocumented, as well as 17% of construction workers and 19% of maintenance workers. If these people were all deported, huge pieces of the economy would simply collapse.
Yet another part of the success story was the veneration of expertise. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was considered a miracle, as were inventions like television and the jet plane. There was close cooperation between government and leading universities, to keep America at the forefront of technology.
Trump wants to withdraw from the world, get rid of scientists at the NIH, doctors at the FDA, economists at Treasury, demographers at the Census Bureau, and policy professionals everywhere in government. For good or bad, the American Century made America rich and powerful and the envy of the world. But a bare plurality of the voters decided on Nov. 5 that eggs were too expensive so they want something else. So far, Trump seems to be leaning toward isolation, oligarchy, incompetence, and corruption. We may soon see how well that works.
Fundamentally—and with apologies to Al Gore—there is an underlying inconvenient truth here. People are unhappy because they feel the "system" is not working well for them. What they really mean is "economics" in a generalized sense, including jobs, wages, health care, education, opportunities, etc. They feel that they are stagnating or even falling behind. Part of it is due to foreign competition, and part is due to technology (automation) that makes some people "obsolete." Being a coal miner doesn't have a lot of future and coal miners feel that no one cares.
For better or worse, the U.S. has a two-party system. Countries that have many parties, like Belgium, Israel, Italy and the Netherlands, allow you to pick a party that is perfect for you, but forming a government after the election often takes a year and often that government collapses before the next regularly scheduled election. In reality, many Republicans don't give a hoot about ordinary folks. What they care about, above everything else, is giving rich people more money and more power. But that is a tough sell, so the GOP has discovered that playing to the voters' prejudices about gays, transpeople, minorities, immigrants, and even women is popular. In contrast, the Democrats really do care about ordinary folks (and have since FDR), but they don't play to people's prejudices. So people have a choice: vote for a party that is bad for you personally but reinforces your prejudices, or vote for a party that is good for you personally but condemns your prejudices as immoral. As long as they vote the first way, they can feel happy that the president and Congress hate the people they hate, but are stuck with a personal situation they are very unhappy with.
Maybe the U.S. needs four parties:
This covers all the possibilities. Maybe there is an opening for bigoted economic progressives (#3). Not a pleasant thought, though. George Wallace was kind of in basket #3. (V)